🚀 go-pugleaf

The end of the cics rope with x86 will provide a huge opportunity for
ppc to expand market share.  While intel/hp try and execute a family of
new, incompatible products the ppc will rapidly gain market share.

This ppc, coupled with the emergence of NT, will erode market share for
servers based on other operating systems such as unix.

All of this says ppc is a good investment.

In <446kq1$2r6@datamagic.com> kanefsky@datamagic.com (Steve Kanefsky)
writes: 
>
>In article <43va7q$4qq@news.eecs.umich.edu>,
>Chung-Hsiung Yang <chyang@quip.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
>
>>	P7 maybe the end of the line, but from all speculation it
>>would incorporate the so called "new" technology from HP that is
supposed 
>>to trascend "RISC" technology ( whatever that is.  People think it is
>>VLIW which is sort of an extension to the so called "RISC" technolgy
)
>>I am not going into what VLIW is, other people will be happy to tell
you.
>>As far as it being the end of the line, I don't know, they may chose
to do 
>>that.  But in my view, the only way to catagorically say that X86 
>>architiecture has been squeezed of all its "computation power" is if
you
>>assume the manufacturing technolgy remains constant.  I mean to make
a 
>>chip faster all one has to do is speed up the clock!  This of course
is 
>
>You can't just increase the clockspeed indefinitely on an existing
chip
>design.  You have to redesign the chip to allow for higher clock
speeds.
>Even if you could, you'd quickly fall behind because newer chips
aren't
>just running at faster clock speeds, they're doing more work per clock
>cycle as well.  If Intel was making 133 and 150MHz 486's right now
>and working on 200MHz 486's -- with no P5 or P6 chips -- people would
>probably start flocking to PPC in droves pretty soon.  A 200MHz 486
>would get what?  100 SPECint92?  Compare that to at least 250 SPECint 
>for a 200MHz PPC 604.
>
>
>>a simplistic view, but I just wanted to point out "RISC", "X86",
"VLIW"
>>sometimes are just marketing terms that people throw  around.  And 
>>Instruction Set Architecture is not the only thing that determines 
>>the success of a chip. 
>
>Tell that to Intel :-)  I think they'll say that x86 compatibility
>is a VERY BIG factor in the success of their chips.  And it may
>be a very big factor when it comes to keeping up with the performance
>of other chips which aren't constrained to such an old architecture
>(so far Intel's been keeping up very well, but lately I think it's
>because they can throw so much more money into developing each new
>generation of 'x86 chip, and that may not work indefinitely.)
>
>
>
>>	That is probably the best attitude to take as a consumer.
>>But I just wanted to point out one thing, the only think IBM and
>>APPLE have in common at this piont is that they both use the 
>>PowerPC chips.  Anybody who have any illusion as to IBM and APPLE
>>working together to produce a all world machine would probably have
>>to wait awile.  IBM never had the intention to work with APPLE 
>>to develop a machine which both would benefit.  IBM is much more
>
>Well, you're probably right in the sense that IBM isn't going to ditch
 
>OS/2 in favor of MacOS, but they are working together to the extent
that
>they've defined a new architecture such that IBM machines will be
>compatible with Apple machines in the same way that Intel-based
machines
>are compatible with each other now.  The goal is to set a new "IBM
>compatible" standard that eventually replaces the old standard (which
>Intel has taken over from IBM).
>
>
>>>Anyway, the point is that suppose a major PC manufacturer, say 
>>>Compaq or Toshiba or Dell, or whatever, decided that they'd better
get 
>>>into the PowerPC game. The PowerPC market could grow enormously 
>>>and do serious damage to Intel. Existing PowerPC processors are 
>>
>>	Lets put it this way, these PC manufactures wouldn't get into
>>the PPC market unless there is a market.   So someone else would have
to 
>>figure out where this PPC market is.  The fact remains, the successs
>>of the PPC does not depend on its architecture, but software.  There
>>are no demonstrable OS and software on the PPC as of today that 
>>people can trust and buy into.  That is your market, right there,
>>and it isn't big.
>
>You say there's no OS and software on the PPC that "people can trust
and
>buy into"?   Ever heard of the MacOS?  The OS that Microsoft has been 

>trying to copy for almost 10 years because it's generally considered
to
>be the best mainstream OS for personal computers?
>
>And you don't think 10% of the personal computer market is a market? 
If
>you were a clone maker, you'd rather compete with literally thousands
of
>other clone makers for the miniscule profit margins on PC clones,
rather
>than competing with about 4 Mac manufacturers, all of which have
pretty
>high profit margins and one of which has $1 billion in backorders they

>can't even fill?  The Mac market is several million units per year,
and
>almost any PC clone maker would *love* to have a chunk of that.  They
>have no loyalty to Intel, and in fact they'd probably love to play
>IBM/Motorola against Intel in order to get the chips they need when
>they need them and at the best price.  Right now they're pretty much
>at the mercy of Intel.
>
>
>
>>	Frankly, I really don't know what Apple management is doing 
>>right now.  I am not so sure if they are sincere in opening up the 
>>Mac architecture and sacrifice their control to gain more market
share.
>>desperately need pre-emptive multitasking and better memory
protection. 
>>In doing so, the OS is going to be bloated like W95 and better and
faster
>>machines will be necessary to do all the tasks that the users have
been
>>doing before.  
>
>Actually, I believe Apple will do a much better job with Copeland than
>Microsoft did with Win 95 or even NT.  Remember that the MacOS now is
>kind of bloated and largely emulated.  Copeland is almost totally
native
>and practically a complete rewrite from what I hear, and making it
lean
>and mean is one of the top priorities.  It's much easier for Apple to
>do this than Microsoft, because Mac software is much better behaved
>and most of it is already being modified as it's being recompiled for
>PPC to be even better behaved.  The worst-behaved software
(extensions)
>probably won't even be compatible with Copeland so it won't have to
>have all that bloat to handle them.  It also won't support 680x0 Macs
>so generally it should be very clean compared to Windows (which has to
>support an unbelievable amount of poorly-designed hardware and
software).
>But even if Copeland had substantial bloat over the current MacOS,
just
>the fact that it'll be almost completely native should at least make
>up for that, so that it'll be at least as fast as the current MacOS
and
>won't require faster hardware.  The memory requirements are actually
going 
>*down* from what I hear, due to a cool new virtual memory
architecture.
>
>
>
>>	As a proud owner of an ancient  Quadra 700, I am a fan 
>>Apple.  But the fact remains, Intel is still doing all the right
things
>>to keep X86's momentum going.  In fact, Intel just landed a
multi-billion 
>>dollar government contract to build a parallel machine based on the
P6.
>
>I doubt it will be running Windows :-)  So it really doesn't matter
that
>it's using P6's.  The number of P6's will be miniscule compared to
those
>in consumer machines.  IBM has some of the fastest parallel machines
>right now using the POWER architecture, but it doesn't really affect
>anything.
>
>Much more interesting, IMHO, is the use of an architecture in the
embedded
>market, where the number of chips is even greater than the personal
>computer market.  We see all kinds of deals to use PPC chips in
everything
>from Ford automobiles to TV set-top boxes.  I haven't seen anything
>like that for the P6.  With the PPC it seems that IBM and Motorola can
>effortlessly crank out variations of the PPC architecture which are
>geared for embedded systems, whereas the 'x86 architecture seems a lot
>less flexible.
>
>--
>Steve Kanefsky